Sunday, July 10, 2011

Bill Lavender and Browning

Age is what happens if you're lucky, right? Or is one a "tattered coat upon a stick," as Yeats had it? Browning's paean to age* in the persona poem below easily (too easily) rides the puffy clouds of belief. Lavender simply steps back and looks. The branches may be rooted in the stars, or the roots may branch through the chthonic blind alleys below. Lavender cooly notes the correspondence.

*I named my son Benjamin Ezra after both Pound and one of his favorite Victorians. Ben had me read several stanza of this poem at his wedding. The paean to age became an epithelium! (And Zara, the product of that union graced my home not 24 hours ago along with her cousin Wilgus, my first grandchild. She was contemplative, quiet and pleasant. Wilgus was wild and happy, when not confused after naps.Wow.)

["When a tree sheds"]

--Bill Lavender

When the tree shredsits leaves in the fallthe limbs beginto resemble the rootthus alsothe man in his autumn

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from "Rabbi Ben Ezra"
--Robert Browning

Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, The last of life, for which the first was made: Our times are in his hand Who saith, "A whole I planned,Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!"

. . .

Poor vaunt of life indeed, Were man but formed to feedOn joy, to solely seek and find a feast: Such feasting ended, then As sure an end to men; Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the maw-crammed beast?

. . .

For pleasant is this flesh;Our soul, in its rose-meshPulled ever to the earth, still yearns for rest: Would we some prize might hold To match those manifoldPossessions of the brute, --gain most, as we did best!

. . .

What though the earlier grooves, Which ran the laughing lovesAround thy base, no longer pause and press? What though, about thy rim, Skull-things in order grim Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stress?